Stanford Positron-Electron Asymmetric Rings

subatomic particles

The research capacity of SLAC was augmented in 1972 with the completion of the Stanford Positron-Electron Asymmetric Rings (SPEAR), a collider designed to produce and study electron-positron collisions at energies of 2.5 GeV per beam (later upgraded to 4 GeV). In 1974 physicists working with SPEAR reported the discovery of a new, heavier flavour of quark, which became known as...

work of Richter

...validity of quantum electrodynamics at very short distances. In collaboration with David Ritson and with financial support from the Atomic Energy Commission, in 1973 he completed construction of the Stanford Positron-Electron Asymmetric Ring, a colliding-beam accelerator with which he discovered a new subatomic particle that he called the J-particle (now usually called the J/psi particle), the...